When an old laptop or smartphone is overkill for your DIY electronics project, a single-board computer is the perfect affordable alternative. It’s been almost a decade since the first Raspberry Pi started a phenomenon and four years since Asus joined the party with its original Tinker Board. Now, a next-generation Tinker Board 2S has appeared to compete with today’s more powerful options. It’s pricey at $125, but it packs a lot of potential for sophisticated inventions and dedicated makers.
A Small But Mighty Foundation
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with single-board computers, and the Tinker Board 2S doesn’t reinvent the wheel. About the size of a deck of cards—in fact, extremely similar in size and shape to the Raspberry Pi—the 2S (and the Tinker Board 2, which has just a microSD card slot for storage while the 2S has both a slot and 16GB…